Meet the member - SBPA committee meets Shelley Hancock

As part of our aim to build better networks, the SBPA committee this week met with State member Shelly Hancock. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship and inform Shelley of some of the issues facing beef producers in the Shoalhaven. These include:

•  Unsustainable farm gate returns
• High land prices inhibit scale
• Smaller enterprises have higher unit costs of production
• Inability to consolidate loads of produce to larger markets (logistics for B-doubles)
• Full pricing – the costs of land rehabilitation and biosecurity fall on producers but also benefit the community
• The need for supply chain participation to take advantage of programs such as MSA (Meat Standards Australia)
• Need to increase regional awareness of local produce and for local shops to buy locally (cost considerations)
• Transition to Local Land Services potentially leaving the sector short of expertise
• Lack of solid data on the producers’ share of retail price

 Shelley proved to be a good listener and the door is now open for dialogue as new issues arise.